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Bound to happen...


quote:

LuminarAI: AI photo editing will make Photoshop look like a stone axe

By Loz Blain October 19, 2020

How much of a given image is real these days, and how much is manipulated? And how much does it matter? The tools of image editing have improved massively over the last 10 years, as anyone who likes to zhush themselves up for Instagram can attest. And a new generation of tools powered by artificial intelligence is going to make Photoshop look like a caveman's tool.

Sky replacement is a perfect example; the right kind of sky can add all sorts of drama and emotion to an image. In the past, photographers had to either be at the right spot at the right time, or sit around and wait until the sky and lighting conditions were just right, an outcome that was far from guaranteed. Later, darkroom techniques enabled some extremely crude developing techniques to effect some changes.

More recently, you'd use Photoshop; mask out the original sky manually, move a separate sky image layer in, then fiddle about with adjustment layers to make the sky and ground colors feel right together. Best of luck if there's a reflective water surface at the ground level!

Skylum's upcoming LuminarAI software makes it ridiculously easy to throw a huge wow factor into your images. It reduces the entire sky replacement operation, for example, to a few sliders and a gallery of different sky options, to which you're free to add your own images. The software analyzes your image, works out where the sky is, places a new one from the image you've chosen, handles reflective bodies of water, and then re-lights and re-colors your original image to suit the sky you've chosen, be it a starry night sky or a dramatic sunset.

You're free to tweak things once it's done, but the entire process is automated, and the results are remarkable, particularly given how fast it happens. Luminar's algorithms, says the company, have been trained using input from a range of "artists, photographers, colorists and scientists."

The software begins analyzing photos immediately upon opening them, building a 3D depth map of the scene and separating out its key elements: sky, water, faces, skin, eyes, lips and more. The analysis will come straight back with a set of "templates" offering the kinds of enhancements typically used on images of that nature. That might include some sky, atmospheric and lighting changes on a landscape, or eye enhancement, skin smoothing, teeth whitening, shine reduction and face slimming on a portrait.

There's even a composition helper, which rolls many rules of composition, including the rule of thirds, Fibonacci spirals, leading lines and the combined wisdoms of the algorithm training teams into a system that suggests crops for you that'll make the image most effective.

Previewing a template's effect on your image takes less than a second, all the details can be tweaked once you've found an overall vibe you like, and you can save your own templates for later use. Likewise, if you shoot a series of images in one place and want them all to have the same final look applied to them, you can sync edits across a range of shots together.

To a dedicated image compositor who's spent years building up the skills to do this stuff manually, it's going to look like cheating. And as with any automatic image editing tool, there'll surely be some dodgy bits in the final images that don't make sense. But viewed in terms of output versus time spent, it looks like a revolutionary step forward that'll allow any old clown with 10 GB of hard disc space and US$79 for the discounted pre-order price to make some pretty wild image edits in next to no time.

It turns completely uneducated users into the equivalent of studio directors, instantly producing the kind of work you'd have needed several hours with a highly talented creative to get in the past.

And as for cheating? I'd argue that outside of photo contests and hard news, there's no such thing. People are well aware now that a ton of Instagram influencers edit the heck out of their shots to endow themselves with superhuman booty. Sorry, beauty. It doesn't seem to make them like the images any less.

I can see this kind of software taking off big time; indeed, I wonder how long it'll take before something like this makes it to your smartphone, with super-fast 5G data transfer and powerful cloud computing making your slider changes in near to real time. This is the direction things are headed in; if you're investing a lot of time in getting your image editing skills together, you may want to consider the future impacts of this kind of software as a factor in your career planning.


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Posts: 22442 | Location: Occupying Little Minds Rent Free | Registered: 04 October 2012Reply With Quote
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quote:
Originally posted by Opus1:
Bound to happen...


quote:

LuminarAI: AI photo editing will make Photoshop look like a stone axe

By Loz Blain October 19, 2020

How much of a given image is real these days, and how much is manipulated? And how much does it matter? The tools of image editing have improved massively over the last 10 years, as anyone who likes to zhush themselves up for Instagram can attest. And a new generation of tools powered by artificial intelligence is going to make Photoshop look like a caveman's tool.

Sky replacement is a perfect example; the right kind of sky can add all sorts of drama and emotion to an image. In the past, photographers had to either be at the right spot at the right time, or sit around and wait until the sky and lighting conditions were just right, an outcome that was far from guaranteed. Later, darkroom techniques enabled some extremely crude developing techniques to effect some changes.

More recently, you'd use Photoshop; mask out the original sky manually, move a separate sky image layer in, then fiddle about with adjustment layers to make the sky and ground colors feel right together. Best of luck if there's a reflective water surface at the ground level!

Skylum's upcoming LuminarAI software makes it ridiculously easy to throw a huge wow factor into your images. It reduces the entire sky replacement operation, for example, to a few sliders and a gallery of different sky options, to which you're free to add your own images. The software analyzes your image, works out where the sky is, places a new one from the image you've chosen, handles reflective bodies of water, and then re-lights and re-colors your original image to suit the sky you've chosen, be it a starry night sky or a dramatic sunset.

You're free to tweak things once it's done, but the entire process is automated, and the results are remarkable, particularly given how fast it happens. Luminar's algorithms, says the company, have been trained using input from a range of "artists, photographers, colorists and scientists."

The software begins analyzing photos immediately upon opening them, building a 3D depth map of the scene and separating out its key elements: sky, water, faces, skin, eyes, lips and more. The analysis will come straight back with a set of "templates" offering the kinds of enhancements typically used on images of that nature. That might include some sky, atmospheric and lighting changes on a landscape, or eye enhancement, skin smoothing, teeth whitening, shine reduction and face slimming on a portrait.

There's even a composition helper, which rolls many rules of composition, including the rule of thirds, Fibonacci spirals, leading lines and the combined wisdoms of the algorithm training teams into a system that suggests crops for you that'll make the image most effective.

Previewing a template's effect on your image takes less than a second, all the details can be tweaked once you've found an overall vibe you like, and you can save your own templates for later use. Likewise, if you shoot a series of images in one place and want them all to have the same final look applied to them, you can sync edits across a range of shots together.

To a dedicated image compositor who's spent years building up the skills to do this stuff manually, it's going to look like cheating. And as with any automatic image editing tool, there'll surely be some dodgy bits in the final images that don't make sense. But viewed in terms of output versus time spent, it looks like a revolutionary step forward that'll allow any old clown with 10 GB of hard disc space and US$79 for the discounted pre-order price to make some pretty wild image edits in next to no time.

It turns completely uneducated users into the equivalent of studio directors, instantly producing the kind of work you'd have needed several hours with a highly talented creative to get in the past.

And as for cheating? I'd argue that outside of photo contests and hard news, there's no such thing. People are well aware now that a ton of Instagram influencers edit the heck out of their shots to endow themselves with superhuman booty. Sorry, beauty. It doesn't seem to make them like the images any less.

I can see this kind of software taking off big time; indeed, I wonder how long it'll take before something like this makes it to your smartphone, with super-fast 5G data transfer and powerful cloud computing making your slider changes in near to real time. This is the direction things are headed in; if you're investing a lot of time in getting your image editing skills together, you may want to consider the future impacts of this kind of software as a factor in your career planning.


Numerous software developers have been creating applications that can be used for photo editing, on both portable devices such as phones, and computers. Luminar is a good one, and so the following:

-OneOne PhotoRaw (the latest version is PhotoRay 2021, but I am still using 2020).

-DXO PhotoLab 3, with the NIK software bundle (this one is my favorites)

There are a few others that I don't remember at the moment, but all can be used as standalone applications, or as PhotoShop plugins. Also every one of them has something that is different or easier to use them the rest. For example, replacing skies like done with Luminar is quite a good feature.

This is a video of what features of Luminar AI are interesting. Also, keep in mind that the Sky AI option is not included in Luminar AI being released in December. That option is supposed to be a in 2021 update to LuminarAI. I plan to preorder a version of it, since the updates usually are free.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6bE7XpmjSo
 
Posts: 492 | Location: Alaska | Registered: 20 November 2013Reply With Quote
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I've used lots of different software filters with a lot of mixed results. I've given up on all of them and simply move the sliders myself. 90% of my pictures are desert settings so I already know what needs to be punched to get a finished product.

But will be interesting to see if AI is any smarter with better results. I believe video will be it's biggest impact - at least here's hoping maybe...


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Posts: 22442 | Location: Occupying Little Minds Rent Free | Registered: 04 October 2012Reply With Quote
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quote:
Originally posted by Opus1:
I've used lots of different software filters with a lot of mixed results. I've given up on all of them and simply move the sliders myself. 90% of my pictures are desert settings so I already know what needs to be punched to get a finished product.

But will be interesting to see if AI is any smarter with better results. I believe video will be it's biggest impact - at least here's hoping maybe...


Luminar 4 includes an option for portraiture in addition to the rest. I am just waiting for Luminar and others to become powerful enough as standalone applications for me to stop using PhotoShop CS6. I don't want to use any app that requires monthly fees, and being online.

Luminar has a video you can watch:
https://skylum.com/luminar?utm...uminar%20%5Bexact%5D
 
Posts: 492 | Location: Alaska | Registered: 20 November 2013Reply With Quote
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Thanks for the information everyone! tu2
 
Posts: 18517 | Registered: 04 April 2005Reply With Quote
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Opus1:
I've used lots of different software filters with a lot of mixed results. I've given up on all of them and simply move the sliders myself. 90% of my pictures are desert settings so I already know what needs to be punched to get a finished product.

But will be interesting to see if AI is any smarter with better results. I believe video will be it's biggest impact - at least here's hoping maybe...[/QUOTE

It does not.

I am in the same boat as you are, and despite all the claims, so far I have not found anything that will beat working on PS.


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Posts: 66744 | Location: Dubai, UAE | Registered: 08 January 1998Reply With Quote
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Saeed,

I am in the process of switching from Adobe CS6 to DXO Photo Lab 4. There is a learning curve, of course, but this is normal for every photo-editing app out there. I am doing this because I prefer standalone apps like the Adobe CS4, 5, and 6. But Adobe does not support those apps anymore. Now their online CC account and monthly payments is the only option.

These payments aren't a big deal for professional photographers who edit their photos in a daily basis, but it is expensive for people who aren't in the business of photography, or others who don't edit photos every day.

With apps such as DXO Photo Lab 4-which may also include the optional NIK Software Package, I can do the same things I can accomplish with CS6. The only thing this app is lacking is a portrait editor, but another app I use, "OneOne Photo Raw," includes a portrait editor.

Here is an example of what one can do with a $49.00-$60.00 standalone app (no monthly payments). The following example is just one out of numerous things one can do with Affinity Photo. in this case, lets say that you shoot RAW, ad want to develop one RAW image:

https://affinity.serif.com/en-...top/video/331997643/

What is happening the days is that a great number of photo editors are being created by several companies, to be used as standalone apps that you can pay in full, and install on your computer. There is great competition between the photo-editing software companies, all which are also competing for the market share left behind by Adobe. The new apps can be used to do the same things one can do with Adobe PhotoSop, except that the image editing is done with sliders, while other effects are done automatically by the software. For example, one can let the software to automatically analyze the image, and apply the correct amount of digital noise removal, or just select the amount of noise removal, manually.

I don't have Affinity Photo, since I use DXO Photo Lab 4 and the NIK Software bundle.

Then if you are a professional photographer and want a standalone app to edit 100MB and larger files from cameras that use over 100MB sensors, there is no application superior to Capture One Pro . It will set you back around $250.00, however. But if you can afford a $63,000 camera such as the Phase One XF, the only software that can handle the files produced by this camera is Capture One. Smiler
 
Posts: 492 | Location: Alaska | Registered: 20 November 2013Reply With Quote
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